Open Source Law Tools Project

An Advocacy and Tuning Project

All of the skinny is here, but here are two things that jumped out at me. Easy content modeling (SHA-444) A new Alfresco Share based user interface to allow business analysts to define and deploy content models for use by Alfresco Share end users. No need to write or even see XML files. Models can …

I wrote previously about a workarounds for preserving file creation dates when migrating legacy content into Alfresco over SMB. As of OS X Yosemite update 10.10.2 changes to Apple’s OSX SMB implementation ‘break’ the prior workaround. Apple seems to be regularly messing with the SMB implementation in OSX, probably in attempts to make sure …

Note: The Mac solution here is broken as of OSX 10.10.2. See here for other approaches. Many use cases call for CIFS, SMB or WebDAV access to Alfresco ‘shares’, particularly for migration and interoperability scenarios with legacy file stores. It is fairly well discussed that the default behavior is to assign a new file creation …

I’ve been hosting my legacy VMs using Virtualbox for quite some time on a dedicated machine running Win7. A recent hard drive death gave me the opportunity to switch this to an open source platform. Primarily because of the number of legacy VMs that I need to fire up from time to time, I wanted …

Here is a quick video and writeup on new features in the new major number release of Alfresco Community 5.0.a. Most of the user facing improvements are (naturally) on the Share side. Lots and lots of behind the scenes bug squashing. The switch to HTML5 pdf.js Previewer falls in both camps – improving usability while hopefully …

A new Alfresco Share based user interface to allow business analysts to define and deploy content models for use by Alfresco Share end users. No need to write or even see XML files. Models can be deployed automatically without a server restart.

Virtual Folders

Define a query for a folder which will dynamically display the relevant content. More information is in the official documentation

Both of these look very interesting. I’m resisting the urge to dive into any of the early releases.

I wrote previously about a workarounds for preserving file creation dates when migrating legacy content into Alfresco over SMB. As of OS X Yosemite update 10.10.2 changes to Apple’s OSX SMB implementation ‘break’ the prior workaround.

Apple seems to be regularly messing with the SMB implementation in OSX, probably in attempts to make sure Macs play nice with NAS devices and windows shares. Forums are replete with Mac SMB problems suddenly appearing after various OSX updates.

…and as of that OS, MuCommander on Mac no longer preserves file creation metadata from legacy file systems. I now can’t find any SMB or WebDAV approaches or applications to address this directly in MacOS.

Note: The Mac solution here is broken as of OSX 10.10.2. See here for other approaches.

Many use cases call for CIFS, SMB or WebDAV access to Alfresco ‘shares’, particularly for migration and interoperability scenarios with legacy file stores. It is fairly well discussed that the default behavior is to assign a new file creation date on the Alfresco side for the date/time that matched the system date/time when the content is moved or copied in. This scenario causes the loss of potentially valuable metadata (the original created/modified dates) that, in some use cases, is a potential ‘show stopper’. Often such metadata is essential for understanding the history, version status, etc. that dates reflect.

I’ve been hosting my legacy VMs using Virtualbox for quite some time on a dedicated machine running Win7. A recent hard drive death gave me the opportunity to switch this to an open source platform. Primarily because of the number of legacy VMs that I need to fire up from time to time, I wanted to keep things simple and stay with VirtualBox instead of switching to a more interesting hypervisor like Xen. So my requirements were essentially these: 1. Run Virtualbox (with GUI) 2. Reliable VNC/RDP type desktop sharing so I don’t have to walk over to this machine in the corner of the Lab to fire off a needed instance.

Here is a quick video and writeup on new features in the new major number release of Alfresco Community 5.0.a.

Most of the user facing improvements are (naturally) on the Share side. Lots and lots of behind the scenes bug squashing. The switch to HTML5 pdf.js Previewer falls in both camps – improving usability while hopefully squashing one of the most persistent error generating transformation chains clogging catalina.out files everywhere.

A common need for law departments is a mechanism for team status reporting on open matters. Some departments leverage other platforms, including popular invoice routing and approval systems that also have light case management tools. Even some Service of Process portals provide light case management tools that facilitate status reporting. As Alfresco has become a base platform for this project, what does it have to offer?

I’ve recently been up to my neck in an implementation of Alfresco Community for a forward-thinking law department. The process has highlighted a number of thoughts on OS business models, the challenges of bringing enterprise grade OS tools to the legal community, and the impressive power and flexibility of Alfresco.

In the past, I’ve built nice, reliable and very usable solutions for legal workflows using general purpose platforms (dating back to VBScript running on IIS) to highly constrained platforms like Filemaker. I’m the first to recognize that my skills as a coder are both limited and aging. The inherent limitations of constrained systems like Filemaker provide a benefit There are only so many things the system can do, so the problem becomes creatively using the available functionality to deliver against the use case.